John Hoffmire: We share something in common, you and I. We both wrote doctoral dissertations on topics we feel passionate about and then centered our careers around that topic and passion. For you, the focus has been medical leadership development in a low- and middle-income country, i.e. India. I’d love to know how your interest
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Copy of Center on Business and Poverty Index – Updated 03-02
The Center on Business and Poverty, in cooperation with students and a wonderful professor at Vanderbilt University, have invested a great deal of time and effort to create an
Imagine you are in a business course and are given the following scenario: Your marketing department has found an opportunity for your business. It has identified a clear problem that, with research, time and heavy investment your company can solve. This solution comes with the caveat that you will be creating a product for a
When the news broke that Martin Shkreli, now the former CEO at Turing Pharmaceuticals, decided to increase the price of the life-saving drug, Daraprim, from $1,130 to $63,000, it made headlines all over the world. A price increase of more than 5,000 percent is probably not justified by high research and marketing costs. More likely
The overall global maternal mortality rate (MMR) may be dropping, but the decline is slowed in part by a surprising rise in rates in the developed world. In the United States, the rate of mothers dying from complications in pregnancy and birth is increasing. The rate seems inconsistent with modern medical and technological advances. Maternal
According to a 2015 World Health Organization report, a mother dies from pregnancy-related complications every 104 seconds. Each time a mother dies, her baby — and even some of her other children — often die as well.
Of the 830 daily global maternal estimated deaths in 2015, 550 or so happened in sub-Saharan Africa, 180 in
Due to the difficulty in accessing drugs from brand-name pharmaceutical companies, most patients in developing nations are heavily relying on less-expensive generic drugs.
One inhibiting issue is that of patenting and intellectual property protection. The World Trade Organization’s law stipulates that patents should last for 20 years from the registration date. This presumably will provide the
Open enrollment for the Health Insurance Marketplace ends January 31 for 2016 coverage. A growing number of people shop for their health insurance coverage during the last months of the year using the Health Insurance Marketplace or a state-based insurance exchange. Unfortunately, many of the people who are eligible for financial assistance through the Affordable
“We as people are not defined by the crises that strike our lives; we are defined by how we respond to them.”
The message above is one thought that Raj Panjabi, CEO of Last Mile Health, finds universal. Last Mile Health has sought to bridge the gap between health facilities and remote communities by bringing critical
A natural disaster like a deadly epidemic inflicts tremendous loss of life but does not damage roads, buildings, or the countries material infrastructure. What it does damage is the social infrastructure like government, the economy and businesses. The good news is that those institutions can be revived and even strengthened despite the loss of human
When you think of a hospital, what images come to mind? For most, the image of a hospital includes a spacious building with rooms full of complex equipment, beds and medical personnel. While common in the developed world, these familiar sights are largely unseen in the developing world, especially outside of large cities.
Unfortunately, this lack of medical infrastructure is not
In 2010, malaria killed almost a million people worldwide and still infects about 350 million a year. These are large figures for a disease that is both curable and preventable.
Malaria is one of humanity’s biggest killers, ranking among the five most dreadful illnesses ever experienced, killing more than 150 million in the 20th century, and an
Ebola has been in the news. But much of the news has not offered background information about the disease.
The world may be facing the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Oct. 15, there have been 8,376 cases and 4,024 people have died. These figures are
War has more casualties than we know.
We learned in September 2013 that an outbreak of the deadly polio virus occurred in Syria. It was the first in that country since 1999. While the world-wide incidence of polio has declined dramatically in the last 25 years, we are actually seeing more cases in some areas. Syria
“Whatever else happens, this child will not be crippled by polio” is just one of the thoughts that go through your mind as you deliver the drops that prevent polio. With that thought and the fact that more than 350,000 cases of polio were diagnosed annually in the world in 1988, Rotary International, a humanitarian
Across the modern world today there are few topics more divisive and debated than health care. Governments are constantly in a struggle to ensure proper care is available to those who need it, while also combating risings costs and greater demands on existing systems. Often, the groups that are hardest hit in this process are
In the race for a cure for one of the world’s deadliest epidemics, it may sound insensitive to raise the issue of share prices. But at the heart of this crisis is a story of potential corporate winners and losers as each tries to address Ebola.
Ebola was first discovered in 1976. Despite all the progress
Around the world, on average, 18,000 children under the age of 5 died every day in 2012. While this tragic fact is definitely cause for concern, it may also provide room for optimism. This is only half the number of under-5 deaths compared to 1990. With the global population constantly growing over
When you think of the word innovation, what comes to mind? For those in the US and other developed nations, innovation is usually thought of in the context of expensive technology. In the past two decades, high-tech gadgets have changed the way the world views transportation, healthcare, entertainment, and communication. These innovations usually debut at an incredibly high price, touting new
For hundreds of millions of people in rural India, living life without a toilet used to be quite common. However, thanks to the Indian government’s toilet building program, millions of people now have regular access to toilets for the first time. Although this sounds like a tremendous success, there’s still one more thing to be
